Texas Gone to tort reform attracts physicians to texas
Not a day went by that emergency physician Justin Hensley, MD, didn’t order a CT scan during his residency at a North Carolina hospital. “I had a 30-year-old patient who’d already had 20 CT scans. It’s dif-
ficult for me to understand how that many scans could be justified on someone so young. But because of the liability climate in North Carolina, residents were instructed to order tests, regardless of their necessity,” said Dr. Hensley, a member of the Texas Medical Association Committee on Emergency Medical Services and Trauma. He and his wife, pediatrician Katherine Hensley, MD, resented having
to practice defensive medicine. “I knew I didn’t want to live and practice in a state that lacks tort re-
form, where physicians are liability targets. That environment forces physi- cians to make medical decisions based on protecting themselves instead of doing what’s actually right for the patients,” she said. The Tar Heel State’s medical liability landscape left such a bitter taste
in their mouths that the Hensleys chose not to remain there to practice. So they came to Texas, drawn by the landmark liability reforms TMA and other organizations secured for physicians and patients a decade ago.
BY CRYSTAL ZUZEK b 20 TEXAS MEDICINE September 2013 PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATT RAINWATERS b RETOUCHING BY ALLISON HUGHES
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